Chapter 16 #2
My eyes remained on the floor, looking at my knees, at where my hands now rested on them.
I kind of liked this posture. It made me feel warm in the pit of my stomach, although I would alter it slightly to make it more comfortable, but with Mr. Bastrom staring at me, the warmth was quickly replaced by worms. Twisting and turning, wriggling around inside of me.
Next, he would ask me to open my mouth. That’s what they liked when I was on my knees. Open mouth, tongue out. I don’t know why they liked it. Drool always dripped from the tip of my tongue, and I hated it.
But maybe I would see Azrael afterwards, and that thought made all the bad feelings go away. Maybe he would talk to Thomas again, taunt him. Maybe he would make another comment on my braid. Maybe he would make me smile again. I liked smiling.
The chair creaked, telling me that he had gotten up. His steps were heavy, and sometimes his left foot dragged the ground. I think maybe his boots were too heavy. “Close your eyes, open your mouth, and stick out your tongue.”
I did as I was told, thinking only of walking back out of this room, of walking into the sanctuary and feeling those warm eyes on me. The eyes of my ghost, of my sea.
The sound of his zipper met my ears. He was faster than the others, so I knew it wouldn’t take long.
I thought of Azrael’s shoes, of his voice, the way he spoke. I liked that lilt I always heard. That dangerous little lilt of an oncoming storm.
I heard a grunt and then the sound of slapping.
I never looked to see what they were doing.
I never looked to see what their cocks looked like.
I never looked higher than the knees on anyone but me, not ever.
Not since I was nine. I accidentally looked up when mother announced my betrothal.
I remember seeing Pastor Masters and Thomas. They both had cold brown eyes.
I remembered looking up one other time too, but I don’t remember why.
All I remember was that I felt sick and more tired than I had ever felt before.
I had been 11, and I remembered seeing the eyes of that man standing above me.
The coldest eyes I had ever felt. They had been blue, and there had been nothing at all behind them. As if his soul had been gone.
I think…I think maybe I’d look up to see Azrael though. I think I would risk the punishment just to see his face one time—
Something touched my tongue, and I gasped, jerking back from it. I snapped my mouth closed and forced my eyes to remain shut. What was that? It felt smooth and it tasted bitter and far too salty.
They had never put anything in my mouth before. Did Thomas know about this?
“Sit up, girl,” he ordered, and then his hand was wrapped around one of my pigtails, and he jerked me forward.
I grunted as that thing touched my lips, forcing them apart. It was hard and soft at the same time. Saltiness coated my lips, and I hated it. I hated it.
I hated it.
“Open your mouth,” he growled.
I felt the tears burn the back of my eyes, fear building under my skin, pain erupting across my lips where they pressed against my teeth. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all. This wasn’t following the rules. I had to follow the rules.
His grip tightened in my hair, sending sharp pains across my head. “Open your mouth or I will report you to your Pillar,” he threatened.
I felt the tears fill my eyes. I didn’t want to be punished, but I would be if I didn’t follow Mr. Bastrom’s instructions.
He shoved it harder, and I shuddered. I didn’t have a choice.
I finally allowed my lips to part, trying to force my jaw to relax, and I immediately felt the thing slip into my mouth. It was long and it just kept going deeper and deeper until I felt hair touch my tongue.
I gagged as it pushed to the back of my tongue, something slapping against my chin. I wanted this to stop. I needed it to stop.
My nails dug into my knees, his grip tightening into my hair.
“Somebody help me,” I begged as Mr. Bastrom pulled my head back and brought it back to him.
“Please!” I wanted to scream as tears slid down my cheeks. My stomach twisted and turned, the worms growing more restless, my body shaking, pain flaring across my thighs and head. The scent of cigars and stale mint was too much. All I could taste was bitter salt and I hated it.
Mr. Bastrom kept pushing into me, that thing, his cock, hitting the back of my tongue over and over again.
I felt my mind start to drift. Drift back to the first time I ever felt those warm eyes on me.
I had been in darkness for so long, the chill overtaking me, that when I felt that warmth, I was almost shocked. I couldn’t believe it. After a while I started to think that God had finally come down to rescue me. Take me from this bad place.
But it was just Azrael. I wondered if anyone else could feel how warm his eyes were. I wondered what they looked like. I couldn’t imagine what color they were. What color would warm eyes be? Brown? No, Azrael wasn’t the name of a man with brown eyes.
Blue maybe, but not any normal kind of blue, it would be far different. Something that matched that lilt. Something that made Thomas angry beyond reason. Something that—
I choked as something hit the back of my throat. Warm and slimy. That salty taste overtook my senses, going up my nose, burning as it slid down my throat.
Mr. Bastrom pulled out and I fell to my hands, coughing and choking, spitting it on the floor, gagging as it dripped from my nose. The white stuff. Semen. He had orgasmed in my mouth.
I felt tears and saliva cover my face, my head pounding as I stared at the spot on the floor. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to taste anything but that taste. Anything at all. I would drink bleach if I could just get it out of my mouth.
I couldn’t catch my breath, heaving as Mr. Bastrom zipped up his pants and walked towards the door.
I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be the ghost. I wanted the sea to overtake me. To erode me away to nothing. I wanted to be nothing.
I felt a hand wrap around my arm and jerk me up. “You let him fuck your mouth?” Thomas seethed into my ear.
I stared at that pool of white, my mouth pooling with saliva. Fuck? He used that word often. What did it mean? It sounded crude and ugly. That’s what it felt like. Crude and ugly.
“Come here, you worthless whore.”
I wasn’t a whore. I wasn’t a whore.
He dragged me out of the room and into the changing room. His movements were angry as he tore the clothes off me, tore the pigtails out, stripped me of everything until I was standing in front of him bare.
He forced me to my knees and grabbed my jaw, jerking my face up, my eyes closing on instinct. “You’ve crossed a line, girl, disrespected our wedding.”
I didn’t mean to. I swear. It wasn’t my fault.
He released my jaw painfully and his steps disappeared.
I spit again, trying to rid myself of the taste. I was impure now. I would never be redeemed. I had broken the biggest rule. The most important one.
I had let one of them, not Thomas, penetrate me.
His steps sounded again, and he grabbed my jaw, leaning down until his hot breath touched my eyelashes. “This is for betraying your sacred duties.”
My entire body went rigid as he stood and took a few steps back, but he didn’t step behind me.
Fear filled me to the brim, my entire body trembling. Why was he standing in front of me? My jaw clenched, and I braced myself for the pain, waiting for his footsteps to sound around me, behind me.
A slice of pain exploded across my chest, and it took everything I had in me not to cry out.
I clamped down on my tongue, tears spilling down my cheeks, my body jerking from the feeling of that sharp whip against my skin.
He cracked it again, the horrible sound filled the room, a whimper escaping my lips, blood coating my tongue as my skin burned.
Another crack, another sharp pain exploding across my ribs right below my chest.
My entire body was shaking, my nails digging into my thighs as another one hit.
Thomas was panting, my breathing shaky and labored through my nose. He stepped up to me, a ringing in my ears. “Now everyone will know what you did. What you are. You betrayed me. You betrayed your husband. How could you do that? How could you ruin us?”
Ruin?
I felt the warmth slide down my skin, something cold building in the pit of my stomach. I ruined us. I ruined everything.
“Get cleaned up and changed. I’m taking you back.”
I kept my eyes closed until I heard the door shut behind him.
I opened them the second he was gone and pressed my hand against my chest, tears falling.
I couldn’t stop them. They fell quickly down my face, mixing with saliva and semen.
My skin burned as if it were on fire, but it was something I was used to, what I wasn’t used to were the hairs on my tongue.
I gagged and lifted my hand, seeing the red coating my fingers. He had whipped the front of me because I had betrayed him. Slashed through my breasts because I had broken a rule. An important rule.
I was impure, I was impure, I was impure.
I ruined us.
I slid my hands over my stomach, just below the lashings, and smeared the blood over me, feeling it coat my hands. I slid them up over my breasts, whimpering at the pain when my hands brushed over the open wounds, before sliding them up towards my neck and my jaw. I smeared it all over my face.
I was impure, impure, impure.
I sobbed quietly, rubbing it over my arms and legs.
Impure, impure, impure.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Until the blood was cold. Until the smell of copper had consumed me.
Eventually, I felt myself calm, and it was a different kind of calm. One I had only felt once, a long time ago. I felt myself drift off, my body going through the motions.